An election judge from the suburbs stopped by with snacks after seeing the long lines on the news.

The speeches were long over and most of the races were called, but Decorda McGee still waited in line at a North Side polling place to cast his ballot.

After nine hours, McGee finally voted around 3 a.m. Wednesday, the last person in a long, slow line of people who took advantage of same-day registration voting.

“I just didn't want to be denied,” McGee said after walking out of the Welles Park polling place in Ravenswood. “I wasn't going to be denied my right to vote, and that was the sentiment of everybody in there.”

Under a new law signed this past summer, people were allowed to both register and vote on election day at designated polling places throughout the state.

People who had not registered to vote but had lived in their precincts for at least 30 days before the election could bring two forms of identification, one of which included a current address. The ballots will be considered “provisional” and set aside from the regular vote count until the registration information provided by the new voter could be authenticated.

But same-day registration was not available at every polling place, which led to confusion for some voters. In suburban Cook County, there were fewer than two dozen same-day registration locations. Election authorities in each county posted same-day registration locations on their websites.

Chicago had five designated sites across the city for those who wanted to register and vote on the same day, but long lines and problems with voting equipment meant some, like McGee, had to wait for hours.

Those sites were also unexpectantly overwhelmed by the number of people who wanted to cast ballots, officials said.

By the time McGee voted at Welles Park on the North Side, virtually all the races had been decided. In the hotly contested gubernatorial race, Bruce Rauner claimed victory before midnight but Gov. Pat Quinn said he would wait until every vote was counted.

McGee, a Democrat, said Quinn's refusal to concede “really pumped me to stay.”

The effort to reduce the Democrat's 71-47 edge represented a critical test for rookie House Republican leader Jim Durkin in...

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan convincingly fended off Republicans who were struggling Tuesday to cut into his lopsided Democratic majority by even a single seat.

The effort to reduce the Democrat's 71-47 edge represented a critical test for rookie House Republican leader Jim Durkin in...

(Ray Long and John Byrne)

Omoregie blamed mismanagement and a lack of polling equipment and volunteers at Welles for the long line. She saw at least 100 people leave without voting, she said.

“It was a zoo. They didn't manage it at all,” she said. “It was completely ridiculous.”

As those at the end of the line cast their ballots, fellow voters and election judges cheered and applauded.

Sara Waller, 23, said the morale of the weary voters was boosted throughout the evening by well-wishers. At one point, an election judge from the suburbs stopped by to give Waller and others snacks after seeing the long lines on the news, Waller said.

“Everytime I was getting ready to throw in the towel, something made me stay a little bit longer,” Waller said. “Once you reach a certain point in line, you can't really leave.”

At the Chicago and Cook County election headquarters at 69 W. Washington St., there was more than an hour wait at 10 a.m. Tuesday, with more than 100 people in a line snaking through the basement, waiting for the chance to register and vote.

At the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood, dozens of residents lined up early Tuesday to register, change their addresses and vote.

Although it was a lengthy, five-step process just to get to the voting booth, residents waited.

At the MLK center, Michael Greer was the last voter to cast a ballot.

By the time he got back to his apartment in Bronzeville around 2 a.m., the governor's race had already been called. His stomach knotted up in disgust, he said.

“People were still voting and they were declaring a winner,” he said Wednesday morning. “Really? Seriously? I waited seven hours and they are calling a race when there are still votes out there.”

Greer, 54, lives just blocks away from the King Center, he said. The last time he voted was in 2008 compelled by President Barack Obama's run for office, he said. Although he hadn't changed addresses, when he showed up to vote Tuesday night shortly before the polls closed, he learned he wasn't registered.

He took a seat at the back of the line, in the auditorium at the community center, plugged his cell phone in the wall and proceeded to wait like the dozens of others in front of him.

“That was the only option I had,” he said. “After waiting so long, there was no turning back.”

The King Community Center was one of only two South Side sites where so called “grace period voters” could register on Election Day and vote on the South Side. When the center opened at 6 a.m. Tuesday, there were two electronic voting machines going, two election judges working the computers and two others helping with paperwork, said Desiree Cain, a site administrator there.

The workers and organizers expected a steady, but light crowd, she said.

“This is a new thing, this grace period voting,” she said. “It is a great program. But no one had any idea there would be so many voters - they were coming out of the walls. The people started coming from everywhere.”

As the day moved forward, Cain called the Board of Elections and told them the King Center had been slammed.

By midafternoon, the site had 10 voting machines going, twice the staff working to help with the paperwork and registration forms. There were additional poll watchers milling around and students who wanted to help give out information. Even the building security guards started to pitch in by handing out voting receipts as people exited.

Still, the process was tedious and time consuming. By evening, it took voters an average of five hours to get to cast their ballot, Cain said.

“We had a supervisor come from downtown and we had more volunteers,” she said. “But there was nothing we could do. It just took a long time. A lot of the people we saw were not regular voters - they hadn't voted in years. They had gotten kicked out of the computers because they weren't active. Some had moved. But they came out and they were determined to vote. As tired as they were, they didn't get out of order. They seemed to come together around it.”

Katrina Oroye, 43, of Edgewater is an active and regular voter, she said. But for about two years, she had been voting using her registration card from her previous address - which is right across the street.

On Tuesday morning, when she showed up to her regular polling site to vote, an election judge noticed her address had changed. The judge told her she'd have to get the problem fixed if she wanted to cast a ballot.

“I started out at Sunnyside (Welles Park) but the line was extremely long,” she said. “I left and came back and it was even longer - wrapped through the building and around the corner.”

One volunteer suggested she try the King Center - perhaps the process was moving faster there. So Oroye caught public transportation to the South Side. She saw the line, but since she was already there she decided to wait it out.

“It was chaotic. There was no organization or communication,” she said. “People were worried. Then a volunteer got on the P.A. system and said, 'I promise you, your vote will count.' People stuck it out.”

As the hours went by, the wait became draining, Oroye said. Parents with young children complained that their babies were hungry. There were three pregnant women who were fatigued from all the standing, sitting and moving.

The crowd rallied together to purchase chips from the vending machine to feed the small children, Oroye said. At one point, someone had boxes of pizza delivered to share with the crowd.

“People felt the chaos was a tactic to keep them from voting,” she said. It took her six hours, but Oroye got to vote.

“When I heard the results, that made me even more motivated to vote. Quinn had not conceded. I posted on my Facebook page: “Every vote counts. I'm still here. I'm still voting.”